BigRedX

It’s essentially the same thing. I got rd of my Gramma Pad because it didn’t make a significant difference to my on-stage sound at most of the venues we played, but it did make my stacked rig extra wobbly on some.

Normal bass strings may not fit the machine heads or tail-piece. You need to get short scale strings at least, but proper Bass VI strings with a 95 or 100 E are the best.

There’s a whole thread about improving Squier Bass VIs in the Bass Guitars forum somewhere. Two things you need to do: 1. Replace the standard strings with some of a heavier gauge. LaBella and Newtone do round wounds and LaBella and Piccato do flat wounds that should make a big improvement. I’m a round wound fan and have Newtones on both my Squier Bass VI and my Burns Barracuda. 2. Raise the bridge to decrease compliance of the string and make it feel stiffer. You’ll also need to shim the neck in order to keep the action suitably low. And don’t forget to raise the pickups correspondingly or it will sound rather weedy compare with before. You can look at after-market bridges and term locks, but for me these two modifications made my Squier Bass VI much more playable and I haven’t bothered modifying it further.

Firstly apart from the Lightwave system which uses LEDs and optical sensors, what are marketed as "active" pickups are simply normal magnetic pickups with a pre-amp circuit built in to the pick up casing. The pickup windings might be low impedance to suit the noise or tonal characteristics of the pickup designer and require the circuitry in order to present the amp with the correct impedance and for the pickups not to sound weedy, but there is nothing active about the pickups themselves. Other than that I would second everything that Doctor J has said.

New studio album out later this year.

Hasn't the mad boss gone? Or has he been replaced with a new mad boss?

Bridges that are designed specifically for a particular instrument shouldn't need any adjustments other than individual string intonation and overall string height. Everything else - individual string height and spacing - should be fixed to suit the fingerboard radius and neck width/pickup pole spacing of the space so there shouldn't be any need to adjust these if the bass is made properly. Of course after-market units need these adjustments because the manufacturer has no way of knowing what kind of bass the bridge is going to be used with.

The Cure are massive. They filled Hyde Park at their 40th anniversary gig last year.

Festivals are my idea of hell, both as an audience member and is a performer. If I was on at Glastonbury, I'd want to helicoptered in 5 minutes before I was due on stage and out again the moment the last note of the encore was finished. Having said that I wouldn't mind seeing the Cure, but I won't be going to Glastonbury to do it.

I don't (and haven't ever) play either. What category does that put me in?

My first bass - a Burns Sonic - very much shaped my playing style for many years. In the early 80s, the only easily available short-scale bass strings were Rotosounds, and on this bass the E string was essentially useless, so I tried as much as possible to avoid using it. This, coupled with the fact that I was very much into Joy Division and other similar post-punk bands meant that I mostly played higher register melody lines on the bass. My next bass, bought in the 90s, was an Overwater 5-string and having 5 useable strings meant that my bass lines became more "conventional". These days I play 5-string bass in one band and bass VI in another, and although there is some overlap of styles (there are some songs that I could play on either bass), I do write and play in different ways depending on which bass I am using.

Assuming that this is a serious question and not just trolling... Using your ears is fine for practicing at home where there are no other sonic distractions, and TBH is good skill for all musicians to acquire. However at a gig, tuning should be done quickly and silently. That's only possible with an electronic tuner. The "tuning song" is one of the most unprofessional things a band can`inflict on their audience, and having an electronic tuner solves this problem simply so you be stupid not to take advantage of it.

All the Terrortones releases were done by Formation Audio, and I was completely happy with the results.

It might mean that the second hand prices of Pedulla basses will start to reflect their actual value. When I bought my Buzz bass the new price was around £3k but sellers were struggling to get more than £1k for nice looking examples in good condition.

TBH I think most tuning mis-haps are down to user error rather than the tuners themselves being inaccurate.

One thing you need to watch if everyone is using their own tuner is that they are all set to the same A reference frequency. I once did a gig where our guitarist had managed to accidentally change their tuner from the standard A=440Hz to either the minimum or maximum setting, which meant that they were almost a quarter tone out of tune with the bass. The sound on stage was not particularly good and the only person who could hear the problem was our drummer who kept telling us to check our tuning. Of course each instrument was perfectly in tune with itself, just not in tune with the other one, so we kept telling him the tuning was fine. It wasn't until our next rehearsal where everyone could hear all the instruments properly that the problem was discovered and fixed. Strangely enough we got a brilliant review of the gig despite the fact that we were so badly out of tune.

And here are my two bass VIs: Squier VM Bass VI Burns Barracuda

IIRC the BBC licence is for broadcast to private listeners only, and anyone using their radio in a public area are effectively rebroadcasting and also need a licence. The PRS licence will be required by the organisers of the event and has nothing to do with the band(s) playing - unless they are the organisers.

Boundary effect is more noticeable than physical coupling with the stage (unless the stage happens to be hollow and very resonant). You have to have your cabs several feet away from floor, walls and ceiling to break the boundary effect.

Neck is quite narrow (although not as narrow as Fender and Squier Bass VIs). If you want to have a look at all the different bass VI options have a read of this thread. I'm currently using a Burns Barracuda. It has a wider nut and better string spacing at that end of the neck, but is narrower than the Squier at the bridge. I'll probably end up getting something custom made that has the string spacing and pickup routing options that suit me.

These days wherever there is room for me, Helix and computer mounted on a keyboard stand. Ideally not too far from the PA stage box for the computer DIs. I don't really mind which side of the stage I am in relation to the drummer, as in a previous band I did a lot of gigs supporting psychobilly bands with upright bass who would set up on the drummer's right hand side so they would be facing him when they were playing.

Works fine so long as there are feet or other screws on the underside of the unit that can be repurposed to hold in place on the rack shelf. The device I was hoping to rack mount had no such screws and would have relied on the brackets to hold it in place. Having thought about it some more I can't see much point to the 1U version if the shelf makes the unit it is holding taller than 1U. It would only work with equipment that is several millimetres shorter than the 1U height, and I can't think of any musical equipment meeting that description that I would want to rack mount, that doesn't already have its own dedicated rack mounting kit.

Which is why IMO it is best to eliminate the reliance of your sound on what your amp and cab(s) are doing.

RIC don't need to work outside of the US to have real weight to their legal threats. Most web sites (including Basschat) rely on at least one US-based service to keep functioning. RIC just has to target these.

Supergroups will only be any good if they include at least one excellent songwriter.